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      The Role of Puberty in the Developing Adolescent Brain

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          Abstract

          Adolescence refers to the period of physical and psychological development between childhood and adulthood. The beginning of adolescence is loosely anchored to the onset of puberty, which brings dramatic alterations in hormone levels and a number of consequent physical changes. Puberty onset is also associated with profound changes in drives, motivations, psychology, and social life; these changes continue throughout adolescence. There is an increasing number of neuroimaging studies looking at the development of the brain, both structurally and functionally, during adolescence. Almost all of these studies have defined development by chronological age, which shows a strong—but not unitary—correlation with pubertal stage. Very few neuroimaging studies have associated brain development with pubertal stage, and yet there is tentative evidence to suggest that puberty might play an important role in some aspects of brain and cognitive development. In this paper we describe this research, and we suggest that, in the future, developmental neuroimaging studies of adolescence should consider the role of puberty. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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          The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations.

          L Spear (2000)
          To successfully negotiate the developmental transition between youth and adulthood, adolescents must maneuver this often stressful period while acquiring skills necessary for independence. Certain behavioral features, including age-related increases in social behavior and risk-taking/novelty-seeking, are common among adolescents of diverse mammalian species and may aid in this process. Reduced positive incentive values from stimuli may lead adolescents to pursue new appetitive reinforcers through drug use and other risk-taking behaviors, with their relative insensitivity to drugs supporting comparatively greater per occasion use. Pubertal increases in gonadal hormones are a hallmark of adolescence, although there is little evidence for a simple association of these hormones with behavioral change during adolescence. Prominent developmental transformations are seen in prefrontal cortex and limbic brain regions of adolescents across a variety of species, alterations that include an apparent shift in the balance between mesocortical and mesolimbic dopamine systems. Developmental changes in these stressor-sensitive regions, which are critical for attributing incentive salience to drugs and other stimuli, likely contribute to the unique characteristics of adolescence.
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            Sexual dimorphism of brain developmental trajectories during childhood and adolescence.

            Rhoshel K. Lenroot, Nitin Gogtay, Deanna Greenstein … (2007)
            Human total brain size is consistently reported to be approximately 8-10% larger in males, although consensus on regionally specific differences is weak. Here, in the largest longitudinal pediatric neuroimaging study reported to date (829 scans from 387 subjects, ages 3 to 27 years), we demonstrate the importance of examining size-by-age trajectories of brain development rather than group averages across broad age ranges when assessing sexual dimorphism. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) we found robust male/female differences in the shapes of trajectories with total cerebral volume peaking at age 10.5 in females and 14.5 in males. White matter increases throughout this 24-year period with males having a steeper rate of increase during adolescence. Both cortical and subcortical gray matter trajectories follow an inverted U shaped path with peak sizes 1 to 2 years earlier in females. These sexually dimorphic trajectories confirm the importance of longitudinal data in studies of brain development and underline the need to consider sex matching in studies of brain development.
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              Synaptic density in human frontal cortex - developmental changes and effects of aging.

              P Huttenlocher (1979)
              Density of synaptic profiles in layer 3 of middle frontal gyrus was quantitated in 21 normal human brains ranging from newborn to age 90 years. Synaptic profiles could be reliably demonstrated by the phosphotungstic acid method (Bloom and Aghajanian) in tissue fixed up to 36 h postmortem. Synaptic density was constant throughout adult life (ages 16--72 years) with a mean of 11.05 X 10(8) synapses/cu.mm +/- 0.41 S.E.M. There was a slight decline in synaptic density in brains of the aged (ages 74--90 years) with a mean of 9.56 X 10(8) synapses/cu.mm +/- 0.28 S.E.M. in 4 samples (P less than 0.05). Synaptic density in neonatal brains was already high--in the range seen in adults. However, synaptic morphology differed; immature profiles had an irregular presynaptic dense band instead of the separate presynaptic projections seen in mature synapses. Synaptic density increased during infancy, reaching a maximum at age 1--2 years which was about 50% above the adult mean. The decline in synaptic density observed between ages 2--16 years was accompanied by a slight decrease in neuronal density. Human cerebral cortex is one of a number of neuronal systems in which loss of neurons and synapses appears to occur as a late developmental event.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Hum Brain Mapp
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Hum Brain Mapp
                Journal ID (publisher-id): hbm
                Title: Human Brain Mapping
                Publisher: Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company (Hoboken )
                ISSN (Print): 1065-9471
                ISSN (Electronic): 1097-0193
                Publication date (Print): June 2010
                Publication date (Electronic): 03 May 2010
                Volume: 31
                Issue: 6
                Pages: 926-933
                Affiliations
                [1 ]simpleInstitute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London London, United Kingdom
                [2 ]simpleInstitute of Neurology, University College London United Kingdom
                [3 ]simpleDepartments of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology, University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
                Author notes
                *Correspondence to: Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom. E-mail: s.blakemore@ 123456ucl.ac.uk

                Contract grant sponsor: NIDA (for R.E.D); Contract grant number: NIH R01 DA018910.

                Article
                DOI: 10.1002/hbm.21052
                PMC ID: 3410522
                PubMed ID: 20496383
                SO-VID: bf9fd4f5-8761-4c45-9c5c-30b296880480
                Copyright © Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
                License:

                Re-use of this article is permitted in accordance with the Creative Commons Deed, Attribution 2.5, which does not permit commercial exploitation.

                History
                Date received : 23 December 2009
                Date revision received : 16 February 2010
                Date accepted : 17 February 2010
                Categories
                Subject: Review Articles

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurology
                Keywords: puberty,hormones,adolescence,prefrontal cortex,development
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurology
                Keywords: puberty, hormones, adolescence, prefrontal cortex, development

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